


Tony gets what he deserves

by I_Teach_Maths



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mpreg, Omegaverse, Out of Character, implied child neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Teach_Maths/pseuds/I_Teach_Maths
Summary: As Tony grew up, things kept being taken from him. He believed that if he was bad things were taken from him as punishment.This is the story of how that would affect him as an adult, and as a parent.This is the story of how his mates try to make him see that that is not how the world works, that that is not how their relationship works.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written with the idea that Tony is living with lifelong issues, that his out of control hormones, as well as the turns his life had taken recently; all of this has a major impact on what Tony thinks and feels.  
> Tony especially is extremely Out of Character.
> 
> Enjoy

Tony was at home between graduating high school and starting MIT, he was fourteen, and his parents were out of the country for a series of charity functions and an award ceremony for his father. He was in his workshop, which was just a room he’d found in the basement that wasn’t being used and took over, and he was working on robot designs when he started to feel unwell. He took his own temperature when he started feeling sweaty and clammy, and when it showed to be a bit high he went to the kitchen and fetched a couple of bottles of water and a couple of bottles of sports drinks, and a couple of snack bars in a backpack to take back to his workshop.

He pushed through his slight unease and continued to work on his robot designs, he’d set a timer so that he remembered to eat and drink every few hours. He’d learned how to take care of himself when he was eight. He’d caught the flu from one of the other learners at his school, and when he’d gone to his mother to say he wasn’t feeling well. She’d been entertaining some charity gala friends, and when he’d opened up his mouth to speak he threw up all over her shoes.

~*~*~*~*~

Tony had come from school feeling unwell, but he hadn’t slept much the previous night, as was usual for him, and thought he was just a bit more tired than usual. He’d been doing his homework when he realised that he’d been staring at his books for half an hour without understanding the question. He was capable of mathematics much more complex than what they were set that day, so that he couldn’t understand what the questions were asking meant that there was something wrong. He sat up straight and stopped trying to concentrate on his homework, and realised that he was feeling much worse than when he got home.

He got up from his desk, made sure that his school uniform was still tidy, and then he went in search of his mother. When he entered the parlour the ladies were in they exclaimed how gentlemanly he looked, he smiled and greeted “Good evening, ladies.”

The ladies cooed over him for a moment, then his mother asked “Yes, Anthony?”

He approached further and was about to raise his arms up for a hug as he said “Mother, I’m not feeling-“ the rest of his sentence was cut off by the vomit coming out.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. The ladies were luckily behind her and couldn’t see the expression of disgust on her face as she looked down at Tony. “Let me get you to bed, and I’ll have someone bring you some soup.” She said, and carefully stepped around the puddle of sick to steer him out of the room. As soon as they were far enough down the hall that the rest of her party wouldn’t be able to hear her, then she called a maid closer “Take Anthony up to his room and put him to bed. On your way there, have someone else come into the parlour to clean up his sick from the floor, and quickly.”

Tony tried to cling to his mother’s hand, but she pulled her hand out of his while the maid pulled him away. His mother turned into one of the ground floor bathrooms to clean off the hem of her dress and her shoes before she went back to her party.

The maid took him up to his room, put him in his bed and brought him a bucket, and then brought him some bottles of water. As she put it next to his bed, she said “Drink lots of water while you’re feeling ill, so you don’t get dehydrated. If you throw up, do it in the bucket.” Then she left him alone until Jarvis was supposed to wake him the next morning. Jarvis immediately saw that Tony was ill, checked his temperature and ranted about everything that the maid should have done.

~*~*~*~*~

From then on, he was allowed to see his mother less, she only addressed him by name when in public and very rarely addressed him when in private anymore, and knew that her time with him had been taken away because he’d been bad. That was the last time Tony went to anyone when he was normal sick. He studied up to know what normal sicknesses were, and what the symptoms of more serious sicknesses were, and he diagnosed himself even when he got appendicitis.

~*~*~*~*~

He’d been feeling nauseous for a few days and he had a fever. When he woke up in the middle of the night from extreme pain in his abdomen, and that it increased greatly when he moved his legs, caused him to think of appendicitis, he remembered that doctors used palpitation to help diagnose, so he pressed down on his abdomen as he read in the textbooks. When that caused the pain to increase, he pushed the blankets off of himself and breathed deeply before he forced himself to sit up on the side of his bed.

He clenched his teeth and stood up from his bed, grabbing his robe and pulling it on over his pyjamas as he forced himself to walk out of his room and down the hall. He clenched onto the banister as he walked down the stairs so that he wouldn’t fall down them, and headed toward the back door. He remembered to turn off the alarm, then he opened the back door and made himself walk from their house, over the large driveway and to the carriage house that Jarvis and his wife Ana lived in. He knocked on the front door as loudly as he could, propping himself up against the doorjamb. He waited a few moments, then he knocked again. The porch lights came on and he heard movement from inside, so he just concentrated on staying upright.

When the door opened Jarvis looked at him startled and exclaimed “Tony?”

“Sorry to bother you in the middle of the night, Jarvis, but I’m eighty seven point three percent sure that I have appendicitis. I think I need to go to the hospital immediately.” Tony said.

“Ana, I’m taking Tony to the hospital, I’ll call as soon as I can. Will you let Maria know first thing in the morning?” Jarvis called into their house.

“Left the door open.” Tony mumbled just as Ana called back to Jarvis that she’d heard him. He relayed the message to Ana and asked that she go close the door. Then he put his arms around Tony’s shoulders, grabbed the keys to his vehicle and took Tony to the hospital. Tony had his appendix out in a couple of hours, and he got a phone call from his mother to ask if he had everything he needed, keeping up appearances.

~*~*~*~*~

Based on past experiences, he knew that bothering anyone about the fact that he was feeling slightly sick would be a bad idea. He concentrated on building the robot he had been designing and didn’t notice how he was steadily feeling worse. When he became hot he took off a layer of clothes, until he realised that he was only wearing his underwear, and he was still steadily getting warmer and warmer.

He sat still while he was drinking another bottle of water and thought about what he was feeling. He was feeling warmer and warmer, to the point of sweating, and every part of his skin was itching like an allergic reaction without any redness or swelling, and his legs were feeling restless. As he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, he realised that even though his whole body was clammy with sweat, there was more wetness than sweat could generate beneath his bottom.

As soon as he realised this fact, it took him less than five minutes to realise that he wasn’t getting sick, but that he was Presenting as an Omega. He knew it was wrong, that he wasn’t supposed to be an Omega, and he shuddered to think what he would lose if anyone found out. He scrambled up and grabbed his backpack with snacks, and took that up to his bedroom, stopping in the kitchen on his way through and grabbing as much water and snack bars as he could fit in the backpack and his arms.

As soon as he was in his bedroom, he locked the door behind himself and dropped his supplies, then he stripped his underwear and looked through all of the drawers for anything that he would be able to use safely to fill his hole that he was newly and acutely aware of. As it was he felt his hole clench around the air, and gush out some more slick, now that his underwear wasn’t there to catch it, it was running down his legs.

He found a dildo that one of the other boys in his class had given him as a joke once, saying that he could use that to satisfy the girls that would throw themselves at him for his money, because he wasn’t old enough to have any equipment to satisfy anyone, he’d opened the wrapping paper and when he saw what it was, he shoved it into the drawer to forget about for the next three years. Now he was grateful that he’d had a twat for a classmate, as he forced his hands to steady so that he could take the dildo out of the package and then go rinse it in the bathroom sink before he headed back to his bed, shoving the backpack closer to it.

When he was on the bed he tried to wait it out, but very soon he was reaching behind himself, and had a few of his fingers buried in himself. That only helped for a short amount of time, until he had to switch his fingers for the dildo.

He couldn’t remember the next day and a half very clearly, all he knew was that he tried his best to make the dildo enough, and when he could remember, he forced himself to choke down one of the snack bars and a bottle of water. As soon as his heat died down, he got up on shaky legs and washed the scent of heat off of his body. He got dressed in the softest clothes he could find, and then he set about pulling the sheets off of his bed. He bundled everything together in a corner of his room, then he searched for the linen closet to get another set of sheets out to put on his bed.

He found it at the end of the hall, and pulled out what he thought he would need. He’d never even seen the sheets on a bed being changed before, so once he was back in his room he stood there staring at the sheets and the bed, trying to figure out how it all fit together. He figured it out a few minutes of staring later, and changed the sheets. Once his bed looked like it did before, he opened all the windows, picked up all of the sheets in the corner and then went down to gather his clothes from his workshop. With his arms full of sheets and clothes that reeked from his heat, he went to the laundry room off of the kitchen, only knowing where it was because he’d heard the washing machines in the past.

As he got older, and his circumstances changed, he learned to recognise the symptoms of his oncoming heats, and he locked himself away as soon as he could, dealing with it on his own.

****~~~~****

He made sure never to let anyone know that he was an Omega, his father had never been proud of him, and seemed to forget that he existed most of the time, derisively telling him that his inventions were not good enough whenever Tony scrounged up enough courage to show Howard, taking what he’d made away from him and sending him away.

Tony somehow knew that Howard would not approve of him being an Omega. Howard had often spoken when it was just the family about how birthing children was women’s work, and that any male that had the same capability was made wrong somehow. Howard himself was an Alpha, and he’d married a female Omega to sire children with. A woman was made to carry a child, having the extra biological quirk of heats six times a year just made it easier for Alpha’s to impregnate their chosen mates. The Omegas in turn felt the need to tell their Alpha mates as soon as they knew that they were pregnant, which they knew biologically sooner than any symptoms started showing.

Tony promised himself that he would never be in a situation where anyone could find out that he was an Omega, unless he told them himself. He started tracking his Heats to the hour on the days when he had them, writing down any and all pre-Heat symptoms he experienced, and after his fourth he found the pattern his body followed.

He built himself a nest, a cube with dimensions of 20 feet, with pillows for the floor, and nooks in which he stored the toys he used during his heats. He made sure the pillows could be washed and dried easily, bought an industrial washing machine for himself, and had it installed in another of the basement rooms where water access was easier. Two days before his heat would start, he gathered enough water, dried foods, energy drinks and fruit to last him a week. He told Jarvis that he had a project he wanted to work on without being interrupted, and promised that he would look after himself, and locked himself inside of his sealed scent proofed nest. He’d put one way windows in behind bulletproof glass, to make sure that he had some natural light that came into his nest, but that even if someone found his nest they wouldn’t be able to see into his nest.

He did a few dry runs, locking himself away in his nest and inventing something that he could show Jarvis afterwards when he came out of his nest. After his first heat, he knew that he would never be able to work on anything while in a Heat, so he made sure to invent and build something spectacular in the week before his Heat. He built something less spectacular during that week as well, and hid the spectacular invention away in a locked alcove on the outside of his nest.

He emerged from the basement after having washed his nest pillows, the clothes he’d had in the nest, and having taken a shower. He removed his brilliant invention from the locked alcove and emerged after his weeklong seclusion to show Jarvis what he had done. In this way he managed to hide his Heats until there was no one left that missed his presence during his seclusions.

****~~~~****

Years later, he lived in a tower that had had his name on it, but now only held an A. He shared his tower with a misfit group of superheroes, and suddenly he had the problem of having to hide what he was again. For his entire life he had given the impression to every other person in the world that he was a beta. He was very grateful that his Heat had come two weeks before his trip to Afghanistan where he had been held captive for three months, which caused his body to skip a heat from the stress of a situation, and that his next heat came two weeks after he had returned home from that hell, even if it was worse for having skipped one.

After the disaster that was the Battle of New York, he sort of invited, but sort of only allowed the other Avengers to move into his tower. His electronic JARVIS, and his three bots (if you counted their simple AI as people) were the only people that had ever found out, were told by Tony himself, that he was an Omega. As soon as the other Avengers confirmed that they would move into the tower, Tony took his suit and his bots back to his family mansion, and he loaded his Heat Nest onto a flatbed trailer, covered it with tarps, and took it back to the tower, where he set it up in his personal private workshop. With the rebuild of the tower after the damages from the fight, he made sure to slip the purchase of a new industrial washing machine, and installed that in his workshop as well. He built his Heat Nest into a wall partition, installed the washing machine close by, and made sure to use it to clean some of his other washing that piled up with his work in the workshop and as a hero that saved the world almost every two weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

Mere months after they moved in, the team started to grow steadily closer, and Tony found himself falling in love with both Bruce and Steve. Pepper had long ago fallen in love with Happy, and the two had quietly bonded and were talking about having a baby soon. Clint and Natasha, both Alphas, were happily bonded to Phil who was their Omega. Thor was an Alpha, in the eyes of humans, and was in a bond both on Earth (to Jane who was a Beta) and on Asgard (he refused to tell them who to, but legend spoke of Loki not actually being his brother and that the Asgard often used marriage as a contract to achieve peace between warring nations, and when the children were betrothed when they were young, they were often raised in the same household as siblings, and only told later of the roles they were to play).

The bonded Avengers often went out on dates, leaving the three unbonded Avengers to entertain themselves. They often ended up in the living room, eating pizza and catching Steve up on the movies he needed to watch to understand most pop culture references, and other movies that the other two thought that Steve would enjoy, or were must see movies.

One night about six months after they started watching movies together on a regular basis, Tony realised that they were cuddled together on one of the large couches, while watching one of the rom-com movies that were on their lists. Tony thought about it, and realised that their positions and the movie that they were watching made it look like they were on a date, which made him think about how he was feeling about the other two. As a rule, he ignored his feelings as unimportant, so he wasn’t confused as to why he hadn’t realised previously that he was starting to have romantic feelings towards the two men that he was sharing his evening with.

He removed himself from the pile, just putting some space between himself and the other two, to clear his head and think about the situation. “Tony? You okay?” Bruce asked quietly.

“I’m fine. I’m just thinking.” He said.

“Well, come on back here, then. You can think while I hold you, I won’t even mind if you need to get a tablet to put down what you’re thinking.” Steve told him.

“Okay.” Tony nodded, and shifted back into Steve’s arms, who in turn was cuddled up into Bruce’s side. He was acutely aware of every shift of Steve’s arms around him, and of when Bruce ran his hand through his hair, or down his arm. He was startled when he felt Steve kiss the top of his head and tighten his arms around him fractionally at the height of the movie, when the protagonists finally admitted to their feelings.

At the end of the movie, Tony realised they usually stayed cuddled together on the couch for minutes before they went their separate ways. Tonight Tony sat up and turned to look at the other two, “Tell me if I’m wrong, I might be reading this wrong, I’m not good with feelings and human interaction. Are we, the three of us, in a relationship?”

Steve and Bruce shared a glance, and then turned back to Tony with soft smiles. Steve reached out for Tony’s hand and gently held it. Tony could pull away at any moment if he wanted to.

“We have been talking about it, knowing that you don’t like talking about emotions. We’ve been trying to come up with a way to approach you. It was Bruce’s idea, to get you used to simple things like cuddling before we broached the subject, that way it wouldn’t have been such a surprise for you, if you got used to that intimacy. I told him that you would figure out that something was going on.” Steve smiled slightly at him, and continued “Tony, I need you to know that if you want, we can call this a relationship, and let it grow and let it change. But if you don’t want to, it can stay exactly the same as it is now, or we can back off what we’ve been giving you now. You are under no obligation to do anything just because Bruce and I want it. If you don’t want the same, we won’t think less of you, and we won’t push, and we won’t for lack of a better word, be mean.”

“Can I think about it?” Tony asked.

“Of course, you can think about it, Tony.” Bruce assured him.

“Can we still cuddle while I do?” Tony asked. He had only realised in the last few months how touch starved he’d been. During his time at university where he had been rooming with Rhodey, he had draped himself over his roommate, and cuddled with him on their tiny couch, and hugged him when he was hung over or insecure. Somehow he and Rhodey were almost always touching in a brotherly fashion, but since their university days, Tony had seen less and less of Rhodey and had never had anyone else in his life that gave him that.

“Yes, Tony, we can still cuddle. Even if you don’t want to enter into a relationship with us, and only want to stay friends, we’ll still cuddle with you whenever you want.” Steve promised for the two of them.

Tony stayed cuddled with them for ten more minutes before he left to go to his room. He lay in his bed, and had JARVIS put his room on lockdown, letting him know that he could talk through the issue of entering into a romantic relationship with Steve and Bruce, which would mean having to let them know that he was an Omega. JARVIS answered his questions by referencing parts of the conversations Steve and Bruce had had where he could observe them, whether they were in the tower or out of it and he’d accessed public networks.

He spoke about the way they spoke about Tony, almost reverently, and the way that Omegas were treated, Steve was glad about how much had been done for Omegas since when he’d grown up and they had almost no rights, and how he had beaten up Alphas and even Betas more than once, in this time and when he’d grown up in the twenties, for treating their Omegas badly. Overall, the two of them were good, and telling the truth about what they wanted. JARVIS also let him know that nothing that he’d seen between Bruce and Steve when they were alone was anything more than what they’d done when he was with them. It made him feel as though he wasn’t just another party to throw into the mix because they were bored with only one another.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony took another week to make sure that he had made the right choice; that his gut wasn’t going to tell him that he’d made the wrong choice. To make sure that he couldn’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t trust either of them. The next time they were left alone in the tower with the rest of the team having left on their various dates, after the two movies they had planned on watching that night, Tony waited a couple of minutes after the movies were done, enjoying the cuddle, just in case they reacted badly and didn’t want anything to do with him once they knew that he’d been lying to them since the beginning.

When he sat up and pulled away from the other two to sit on the coffee table and face them, they sat up to face him side by side. “Okay, so I have something that I need to tell you before any decisions are made by any of us whether we want to get into a relationship or not.” Tony was looking anywhere but at them, picking at his fingernails.

“You can tell us anything Tony, it won’t change our minds about you.” Bruce said.

“I’m not so sure about that.” He glanced at Steve, he came from a different time after all, and he expected a bigger reaction from Steve than from Bruce.

“Don’t worry, Tony. I know all about your past, if that is what you’re worried about. When I was growing up, life wasn’t all that different than it is now. People messed around with other people all the time, the only difference is that people whispered about it behind closed doors with friends and family, instead of filming it and talking about it on television, and the internet didn’t even exist at that stage yet. Now it’s discussed almost more commonly than what people were wearing and doing, but it’s not as if it was only recently discovered.” Steve said.

“That’s not exactly helpful now, but it also isn’t making it worse.” Tony said with a smile. He glanced at Bruce, and looked back down at hands. He took a minute to calm himself down as much as he could and spoke softly “I’ve never told any breathing person what I’m about to tell you now. Not my parents, or Stane, or the original Jarvis, or doctors. Not one person that has ever lived, or is alive today, except for me, knows this. This JARVIS, and the three ‘bots know, but they’re special. I made them myself, and I know that they would never betray me.”

“Tony, what is it?” Bruce interrupted him, before he could wind himself up too much.

“Everyone in the world thinks I’m a Beta, but I’m actually an Omega.” Tony said. His voice was barely above a whisper and squeaked by the end, but he got it out for them to hear. The secret that he’d kept for more than fifteen years, out into the world.

“Are you really? How does no one know about this?” Tony could only hear wonder in the words, no doubt, and no accusation.

“How did no one ever know this about you? Didn’t your parents ask you at Presentation age?” Steve asked. Everyone Presented as Alpha, Beta or Omega, by the latest at age fifteen.

Tony shook his head, and said “They wouldn’t have liked that I was, am Omega. I knew that long before I was even close to Presenting. I made them think I was Beta, I never said anything, but I made sure to ignore every single Omega instinct that I felt. I researched how Betas acted and reacted, and I trained myself to do it that way. I’ve been living like a Beta my whole life, except for when I go into heat. Then I lock myself in my Heat Nest for a week, two days before and two days after. I wash my pillows, my clothes, my toys, and myself before I come out of the workshop. And JARVIS has been neutralising my scent for years, so there’s no linger in the workshop.”

“How did no one know when you presented?” Bruce asked.

“I was lucky, I guess.” Tony said. “I’d just finished high school. So I was home for the summer holiday before I was going to head to college in the fall. My parents were overseas, and I actually got home about a week earlier than I should have, meaning that only a few maids were at the house at that time. The rest of the staff had been given a week off. I didn’t even know that I was Presenting, until three days in, I was so focused on something or other I was designing. When I did realise what was happening, I made sure I had enough food and water, and locked myself into my bedroom, and I dealt with it. I washed my own sheets, and I kept track of any symptoms I had that might have indicated my next Heat was on its way. I built my Heat Nest, and I stocked up on food and water just before, and I locked myself in, and I only let myself out two days after it finished, and that’s what I’ve been doing every time.”

“Do you want us to think about what you’d told us for a few days, before we all sit down and talk about this, and whether or not all three of us want to start something?” Steve asked Tony.

“I think it would be a good thing, if you thought it over first.” Tony said with a nod.

Steve shifted closer to Tony, and clasped his hands in his own. “I want to tell you now, and to reassure you that I don’t think anything will change, but I haven’t changed my mind about what I think of you. I am glad that you told us, and I want to promise that no matter what happens between us, I will not tell another soul about your status. I won’t break your trust in this, Tony.”

“Thanks, Steve.” Tony said.

“The same goes for me, Tony. I still think of you the same way, and I won’t let anybody know anything.” Bruce pitched in. “Right, how many days do you think before we get together to discuss this?”

“I think two days should be enough time.” Steve said. “In two days, we all meet in Tony’s workshop, we can have JARVIS put it on lockdown to make sure none of the others can overhear anything, and then we can discuss our notes. Yes, I expect you to make at least a few notes about this. Reasons why it might work, and reasons why it might not work. We can compare notes and discuss what we came up with and then we can all make a rational decision. Well, as rational a decision as one can make when the heart is so thoroughly involved.”

“Okay, that sounds good.” Bruce said. Tony nodded his agreement before they all got up and went their separate ways for bed.


	4. Chapter 4

And so, the three had come together and discussed the reasons why it might work, the reasons it might not work, and they came to the conclusion that the reasons why it might work far outweighed the reasons why it might not. They all looked at their notes, and the responses that had been given to hypothetical situations, that would mean that everyone was looked after. “I think we should keep these, so that if any of these situations come up, we’ll have possible solutions at the ready.” Bruce said.

“It’s not a bad idea.” Tony conceded.

“Now, there are three more things we need to talk about.” Steve said, and when he had both of their attention he continued “Are the three of us going to give this a chance? Are we officially in a relationship?”

“Yes.” Tony and Bruce both answered.

“We need to discuss now whether any of us wants, or doesn’t want children one day.”

“I can’t father children, because of the Gamma radiation.” Bruce answered.

“I’ve never thought about it, really, especially not after the palladium poisoning. I don’t even know if my body would be safe for an embryo. I’ll have JARVIS do some testing.” Tony said.

“Does that mean you do want children?” Steve looked so hopeful.

Tony thought about it for a moment, about Steve being there to teach the child right from wrong, about Bruce being there to nurture it, about being able to teach the child about mechanics and engineering and whatever else the child wanted to know from him. “Yeah, I think so.” He said with a small smile.

“All right, last thing then. Tony, this is for you to answer only, now that we know, do you want us to help you when you go into Heat? Or do you want to continue dealing with it on your own?” Steve asked Tony.

“I’m not ready for anyone to help me with it. I’ve upgraded my Heat Nest, JARVIS is incorporated now, so he’s still been with me since you guys have moved in. He can patch comms through between us, when I’m lucid so that we can talk maybe.” Tony said, his voice smallish, just waiting for rejection.

“That would be nice, knowing that you’re doing okay.” Steve said. Tony smiled at him almost bashfully. “Do you mind telling us when the next one should be? So that we can prepare however we can for it?”

“Um, next week. About Thursday or Friday.” Tony said.

“Is that when you Heat is starting, or when you’re going to lock yourself away?” Bruce asked.

“When I’m going to lock myself in my Heat Nest.” Tony said. They nodded and sat looking at each other for a few moments, before Tony got up and started towards a workstation to continue his engineering. Bruce and Steve shared a fond look before they got up and left the workshop. Steve brushed his hand along Tony’s back as he passed, squeezing an elbow and earning a small smile.

The three continued with their routine, pulling Tony out of his workshop a little more often to share meals with them, but mostly keeping their dates to the times the others were out on their own dates. During team movie nights, the three of them started to cuddle together as they did when they were on their own, but their relationship developed slowly.

Four months after they officially entered into their relationship, after one of their movie nights, just as Tony started to get up from the couch, Steve pulled him back and around, and gently turned his face to him and kissed him, slow and soft, and so gentle as to almost bring tears to Tony’s eyes. When Steve pulled away, putting their foreheads together and just sharing breath for a few moments, before Bruce pushed Steve’s head to the side and took his place.

Their favoured cuddling position on the couch was with Steve resting back against Bruce, with Tony resting against Steve’s chest and sitting between his legs. A few times Tony had dozed off sitting like this, which proved to all three of them how much Tony was learning to trust them. Sometimes, when the reactor was hurting Tony and he couldn’t lie down, he sat with his back against the couch, with his two Alphas lying down with their heads in his lap, and he carded his fingers through their hair, once or twice getting a snuffling sort of snore from Bruce. Steve always stayed awake through their cuddling sessions, as the more dominant Alpha between him and Bruce, he stayed awake and aware to protect his partners in the public space they were in.


	5. Chapter 5

Each milestone in their relationship came months from the previous, slowly working up to it with Steve leading them there. The first time they slept together, they cuddled Tony between them on the bed. The first time they had sex, Steve made sure that it was exactly halfway between two of Tony’s Heats, so that all of their heads were as clear as possible. He still made them use protection, and made sure that all of them were comfortable and satisfied with everything that happened between them. And it was months after that before Tony approached his two Alphas and asked them to come to his workshop.

“What’s going on, Tony?” Bruce asked, looking around the lab for any trouble that might need their help.

“Nothing is wrong. There’s something I want to ask you.” He said, settling on one of the workbench’s stools in front of the couch, on which his two Alphas were sitting, their thighs pressed together knees to hips. “I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track, like I have…” here Tony gestured at where his Heat Nest was hidden away.

Both of them nodded, and Steve said “Next one should be starting this weekend.”

“Yeah, I want to talk to you about that. My Heats haven’t ever been terrible, and I’ve been fine dealing on my own, and I’m used to it. But the last two, even though they haven’t become worse or anything, I still find that I’m not quite satisfied enough, as I have been in the past. Physically my body is fine with just the toys as always, but emotionally, my Omega side wants more than just toys to get me through my Heats.” Tony looked at his knees as he spoke, still uncomfortable with discussing emotions.

“What are you saying, Tony? I don’t want to misunderstand you.” Bure said.

“I’d like you to share this coming Heat with me.” Tony made himself say.

“I’d be honoured, Tony.” Steve said, reaching out to take Tony’s hand in his.

“Wow, yeah, definitely.” Said Bruce.

After a few minutes Steve asked “How do you want to approach this? Do you want us to just be there while you use the toys? Or do you want us to help you through it? Do you want us to claim you? Do you want us to use protection?”

“I’m not sure exactly how I want it to happen. I know that I want it to be inside of my Heat Nest, I feel safe in there, and even though I wash my pillows after every Heat, it still smells like me in there after all these years. It’s more than big enough for all three of us, we’ll have to restock the refrigeration unit when it empties out, I only built it big enough to hold provisions for me, so we’ll have to put a crate in there to hold whatever isn’t in the fridge.” Tony was talking a mile a minute. “I don’t know if I’d be able to allow you to help me out other than just being there, and if that’s too much, you don’t have to push yourselves into doing this, we can wait until I know I’m ready for you to help me through my Heat; like I said, I’m not hurting. But I want us to have more than enough protection with us, if I do want or need you to help me yourselves. What do you guys think about that?”

“I think that we can do that, Tony. We can plan it out nicely for the next few days, while we stock up the Heat Nest.” Steve said.

“What if one of us loses control?” Bruce asked.

“We’ll add protective measures to ensure that if something happens, either the one of us or both of us are incapacitated. Maybe magnetic shackles that JARVIS can control?” Steve said.

“That might not work for me, I haven’t been close to an Omega in Heat since I became the Hulk, and I don’t know it that can become a problem.” Bruce said.

“We can add a sedative to your bracelets, not enough to put you out, but enough to keep you calm if it starts to be a problem?” Steve asked. “My body digests any chemical agents much too fast, but what about you?”

“It will need to be a continuous infusion, so we’ll have to sort it so that the magnetic bracelets line up with an external source of the chemical so that it can be infused into me. That might actually be a really good idea, and I have been working on a chemical compound that works on my system. It’s not where I want it yet, but it is close, and it will work well enough for this.”

“How does that sound to you, Tony? Do you think you could make each of us a set of cuffs that will do the trick?” Steve asked, turning back to him. Tony just nodded, flabbergasted. He didn’t expect this from the two Alphas in front of them. At the most, he expected them to agree, and to promise that they would try their best to do only what he wanted them to. “You okay, Tony?” Steve asked.

He nodded with a small smile on his face “Yeah, I just didn’t really expect this much from you. I expected you to promise me to try your best, or to say that you didn’t think that you’d be able to do it, and that we should wait until I knew I was ready. You guys are really amazing, and I’m very lucky to have you.”

“We feel exactly the same about you, Tony.” Bruce said.

The three of them got up from their seats and started working on their tasks to prepare for Tony’s Heat in two days. Bruce was working on the chemical part of the manacle system, while Tony was working on the mechanical part of it. Steve butted in momentarily with the design aspect, making them look good as well as being functional and sturdy. While the two scientists were working on making sure the manacles would work as they were planned to do and started on the manufacturing part of it, Steve grabbed one of the tablets lying about and activated it with a press of his thumb.

He had JARVIS help him go to a site where he’d be able to order the provisions they’d need and proceeded to stock up on crates of water, sports drinks, fruit juices, dried foods and fresh fruits and vegetables they’d be able to eat raw.

Tony got all the Avengers, Rhodey, Pepper and Happy together the night before his Heat would start, and sat them down on the couches in the lounge. Steve and Bruce were standing behind him, protective and supportive. Tony was pacing in front of the others a bit. “All right, I have something to tell you all, and I don’t want you to freak out at me. This is something that I’ve only ever told Steve and Bruce, because it was relevant for them to know. In my whole life, no one else but JARVIS and the three bots have ever known. But now, it will be necessary for the rest of you to know as well.

“Tomorrow, Steve, Bruce and myself are going to lock ourselves away for a week. If it was only me, I’d give the same excuse I’d been giving since I was a teenager, that I was locking myself away for an inventing spree for a week, but I don’t think anyone would believe me if I said that the three of us were doing that.

“As you know, we’ve entered into a relationship a few months ago. What none of you know is that we’re not two Alphas and a Beta, but I’m an Omega.”

The seven people on the couch just stared at him in flabbergasted silence. “Wow! I can’t believe I never knew. How could I have missed it?” Rhodey asked.

“I’ve hidden it from the very start. I was alone when I Presented, and I made sure to track my Heats extremely carefully to lock myself away. I trained myself to behave like a Beta.” Tony said.

“Why did you hide it, Tony?” Pepper asked, trying to understand.

“Howard didn’t approve of male Omegas, since I was a young child I knew that. It wouldn’t do for his own son to be an Omega. So I hid it from everybody, if I didn’t enter into a relationship with Steve and Bruce I never would have told anyone.” Tony said, pulling into himself a little again. He was still defensive of his actions and scared that he would be rejected for them.

“Okay. I’m glad that you told us now.” Pepper said.

“Why did you tell us now?” Clint asked.

Tony blushed scarlet but answered none-the-less. “My Heat is starting tomorrow, and my Alphas are going to stay with me this time.”

The two Alphas stepped forward together and each took one of Tony’s hands. Tony just smiled at the action. “I’m glad for you, Tony.” Rhodey said.

The group sat around the lounge chatting for a few hours, sharing a dinner of takeout before they broke into their smaller groups and went to bed. The little group woke up the next morning, to Tony groaning about feeling nauseous, as he usually did the morning when he locked himself in his Heat Nest. This morning his Alphas coddled him, fed him tea and toast, helped him to shower and dressed all of them in soft sweats and T-shirts, and then took him down to his workshop where JARVIS had already opened the Heat Nest. The two Alphas helped each other to put their respective manacles on, making double sure with JARVIS that they were secure, before the three of them entered the Heat Nest and locked themselves in.

The two Alphas kept their Omega company through the week of his heat, each of the three working on their own projects, or cuddling together for movies. When Tony’s Heat hit him, he was held by either one or another of his Alphas whilst stuffing himself with one or another of his toys. Bruce only once tried to take Tony, but Steve only had to growl at him and he conceded to the stronger Alpha.

Two Heats later his two Alphas positioned themselves in front and behind him, and each took a side of his neck where it would be hidden by the collars of his shirts, and bit down into the flesh to claim him as their Omega. Two heats after that, after they had discussed it at length, his Alphas took turns in helping him through his heat themselves. Six months later, Steve forewent protection the next time they locked themselves into Tony’s Heat Nest, and impregnated their Omega.


	6. Chapter 6

Eight months later, Tony was nicely plumped up, with his healthy round pregnancy belly sticking out in front of him. He was taken off of active duty when he was two months along, when his body started to change and his Iron Man suit started feeling the slightest bit tight around his abdomen. He had had to convince Steve with multiple studies and Bruce and JARVIS’s help that it was safe for the embryo to do so until the suit started to get tight. Then he sat at home with Phil, Pepper, Happy or Rhodey, worried about the rest of his team until they came home and he could see for himself that they were fine. His Omega traits started showing more, he was caring more and more for the others, cooking for them after missions while they were showering and debriefing, taking them soup and toast and tea when they were injured and weren’t supposed to move around.

The team had been called to the Triskellion for training, both as a team, and for newer recruits to learn how to work with the team if it was ever needed. Tony wasn’t required to accompany the team there, but he went along. He couldn’t just sit at home, where he was no longer comfortable working in his lab and didn’t like planning out projects when he couldn’t actually create them. He took JARVIS along in the Iron Man suit that he brought with to let the newbies get a feel of working with Iron Man. He and JARVIS worked together to control the Iron Man suit during the training exercise.

After the new recruit training exercise, the Avengers had a training exercise for just them, so Tony gave each of his mates a kiss and told them he’d see them at home after they were done. As he was heading to the exit of the building, there was a boom, followed by a shudder that ran through the building. Tony heard the crack of the structure, and JARVIS spoke up from the suit next to him. “Sir, I believe it prudent to vacate the building, as the structure is no longer sound.”

“I don’t think I’m going to make it out, J. I can’t move as fast as usual, and the suit can’t take me at the moment. We’ll have to think of something else.” Tony said, as he glanced up at the ceiling that was raining dust down on him.

“Perhaps finding a small sturdy space to hunker down in?” JARVIS asked.

“The old practice of standing in a doorway during an earthquake, J?”

“In essence, sir, yes. There is a supply closet at the end of this hallway that might offer extra protection should the building collapse before you can be rescued, sir.”

“I hate the fact that I might need rescuing, JARVIS. I built the Iron Man suit to make sure that I would never be vulnerable again. Now it isn’t any use to me, because I’m too big to fit in it. My feet and legs are too swollen to fit, my bump will need a second suit of its own, and my arms have gone pudgy. The only things that would fit is my head, my hands, and my back.” Tony grumbled good naturedly, rubbing his bump in reassurance all the while.

“Perhaps, sir, the suit could offer some protection without ensconcing your body entirely.” JARVIS offered.

“You mean to have the suit wrap around my back only?” Tony asked. Instead of answering him, JARVIS made the suit outstrip Tony and stop a few paces ahead of him, opening the suit along the front. Tony stepped into it backwards and felt some of the softer clamps fold around his body to keep the suit against his back. The gauntlets and helmet closed around Tony, and although he felt strangely exposed the way the suit was only wrapped around his back, he felt slightly better than he had before without anything at all to protect his body.

Just as he reached the supply closet, the building juddered again, and he threw himself into one of the corners of the supply closet. “JARVIS, the priority is the baby. If this building comes down on my head, you cobble this suit around my baby. Do you understand me?” Tony asked, wrapping his own arms around his bump protectively as the ceiling in the supple closet started cracking and raining down plaster dust.

When there was another, closer boom, and the whole building seemed to vibrate around Tony before he heard it starting to crumble, Tony turned on his side facing the wall, and felt JARVIS reassemble the suit around him. The suit back stayed firmly against his back to the end of his tailbone, the helmet stayed around his head, the arms and legs detached from their regular positions, and the clamps that would close the suit around Tony in a regular situation, clamped together to create a sort of dome over Tony’s abdomen with as much of his legs curled up beneath it with his body as he could manage. When the building started to fall apart, JARVIS kept talking to Tony, trying to keep him calm even as Tony knew he was being buried alive beneath the rubble.

JARVIS kept telling him that he was going to be fine, that there was no damage to his baby, even as Tony felt a large piece of wall come down on him, hitting an exposed piece of his body and Tony cried out in pain as he heard bones snapping. Somewhere in that chaos of crumbling building and pain, Tony passed out. When he came to again he was lying on a hospital bed as he was rolled down the hallway to surgery.

He was lucid for long enough to tell the doctors no to remove the baby if at all possible. “The baby isn’t ready to be born yet. They’re supposed to be inside for nine months, and unless my body is doing damage to the baby they’re staying inside. I’ve had open heart surgery without anaesthesia; I can do this one with mild sedation. Nothing that can even possibly hurt the baby. Promise me, JARVIS, get them to promise, record it, I want to be able to hold them accountable.” Tony was almost frantic.

“As always, sir, I am at your service.” Tony only realised as JARVIS replied to him that parts of the suit was still around him, and that the faceplate of the helmet was open but that he was still wearing it.

When the doctors acquiesced Tony drifted back into unconsciousness. When he woke again, he was lying on his back, back in the tower but still with a drip attached to his arm. When he managed to lift his head enough to look down his body he was relieved to see that his stomach was still smoothly rounded, and at the ten and two o’clock positions he could just see his toes sticking out from the sides of his stomach. He forced himself to wriggle his toes through the pain it invoked, to make sure that he still had use of them, and then he forced himself to lift first his left and then his right hands off the bed, only noticing the cast on his right arm when it lifted at an awkward angle. He promptly fell back into unconsciousness from the exertion before his Alphas, who had been alerted to his wakefulness by JARVIS whilst they were being debriefed two floors down, could reach their bedroom.


	7. Chapter 7

He woke up sporadically over the next couple of days, only just being aware of either Steve or Bruce being with him and talking to him whilst he slept. When he was awake for any stretch of time, they fed him spoons of soup and chips of ice to keep him fed and hydrated as best as possible.

Two weeks after the bombing of the Triskellion, Tony was finally able to stay awake for a few hours at a time. Steve, Bruce and JARVIS were his constant companions, with frequent visits from the rest of the team and Tony’s friends between. A week after that, his body hurt more than it had been for the time that he’d been laid up, and he only realised a few hours later that the cramping he was experiencing were in fact contractions.

“Steve! Bruce!” Tony got their attention. They were sitting on the couch, with Steve drawing and Bruce reading as he leaned against Steve. “I’ve gone into labour, it’s time for the C-section.” He told them. Tony had planned on giving birth naturally, but with his hips broken in three places, and his right thigh snapped a hand’s breadth from the top, he was not in any physical condition to give birth to a baby.

Bruce got him situated on the stretcher they had in the room for this express purpose, while Steve called down to the medical floor to have them prepare for the delivery of their child. “Tony, you only just started staying awake, after the bombing, and I think that the surgery will mean that your body will need even more energy for healing again. I think you’ll be back to sleeping most of the day, only waking up for a few minutes at a time. The jostling from moving you for the surgery also won’t help, and if you still plan on breast feeding, we’ll have to stay on the drug regime we’ve been using up to now.” Bruce was explaining to him.

“Okay. As long as the baby scents me, it will be fine. Scent imprinting goes hand in hand with breast feeding for the healthiest development of the baby. The baby will accept feeding better then as well.” Tony managed before another contraction contorted his body on the bed.

“Of course. Tony, I’m going to sedate you, so that the contractions don’t make you move about so badly. I’m afraid that if you move about too much and too quickly you could reinjure yourself. Are you okay with this?” Bruce made sure that Tony had a say in every step of his treatment possible. He nodded at this, and Bruce slipped the needle into his drip to add the sedative that was safe for use with the pregnancy.

Tony woke enough to feel his baby on his chest every so often, once or twice he felt as his baby latched on to suckle at his breast. Other times he felt another strange sort of suction, that he realised was that someone was using a breast pump on him. When he started waking up for longer periods of time, a week had passed. He was alone when he woke up, and when he asked JARVIS where the others were, JARVIS told him that they were with the baby, that they had named Howard whilst he was unconscious.

They had never discussed the relationship Tony had with his father; they just assumed that their relationship was fine because Tony had kept the fact that he was an Omega from his father. They must have assumed that Tony would want to honour his father and named his baby after the man that had ignored Tony most often, but most of the times when he did notice Tony he derided him and at times even struck Tony.


	8. Chapter 8

Hearing that his baby had been named Howard hit Tony like a punch to the gut. “Shall I inform them that you are awake, sir?” JARVIS asked.

“What are they doing?” Tony asked.

“I believe they are simply spending time with Howard. He was fed a bottle half an hour ago after being changed. Currently they are simply playing with him with a soft toy.”

“Howard?” Tony asked.

“They named the baby Howard after your father, sir.”

“I wanted to name him Matthew.” Tony mumbled, mostly to himself.

“Noted, sir. Do you wish me to inform them that you are awake?” JARVIS repeated.

“No, it’s fine.” Tony said. He reached over to his bedside table with effort to retrieve his tablet, and worked on some of his older projects to keep himself occupied.

Half an hour later, Steve came into the bedroom. “Tony! You should have let us know that you were awake, we only just put Howard down for another nap.” He turned in the doorway and called to Bruce “Bruce, make Tony a plate of food as well, he’s finally awake!”

Tony heard Bruce calling back from the kitchen that he’d heard and was glad. When Steve turned back to Tony again he said “It’s fine, next time he’s awake.”

Steve just nodded at him before he came into the room properly and leaned down to give Tony a kiss. “I’m glad you’re finally awake. Bruce said that the surgery took a lot more out of you than he expected it would, but that when you woke up, it should be better than after the bombing.”

Tony just nodded. When Bruce brought their food into the bedroom, and Steve helped Tony to sit up, Tony just accepted the help from his mates. As he continued to eat, he pressed at his chest, the discomfort that he’d felt there growing. “What is it, Tony?” Bruce asked.

“My chest hurts, like it’s too heavy.” He said.

“It is about the time now when we usually pump your breasts. You were very adamant that if your body produced it, Howard would be drinking only your breast milk until he self-weaned. You weren’t in any position to either feed him or to pump yourself, so we’ve been doing it for you.” Bruce told him.

“Show me how it works, please.” Tony said when they were done with their meals.

To Tony’s surprise it was Steve who approached him. He sat on the edge of the bed, and removed the breast pump from the bedside table. He explained what to do as he undid Tony’s shirt for him and placed the cups onto either of his breasts. Tony flinched a little as the pump started working, not used to the feeling it caused. “Is it hurting you?” Steve asked.

“No, just unexpected.” He said. And it was true, his body had been made to do this, and it had had a week to get used to the feeling, but Tony hadn’t experienced it yet.

“So, how are you feeling?” Bruce asked.

“I’m fine. I actually think I might be able to get up and walk around a bit.” Tony said.

“Although that is good, I think you should give yourself another day or so before you try that. And in that time you can get yourself used to the fact that you will be using a walker for a while; and after that a crutch or a cane of some kind. And I will ensure that you do, or I will tie you to the bed to keep you resting, understood?” Bruce said, tone firm.

Tony just nodded, he knew that it was his fault that he was hurt, and now his Alphas had to look after the baby in his stead. It was his biological job to look after any baby that he gave birth to, and yet he was stuck in bed while his Alphas had to look after their baby. Fifteen minutes later, Steve turned the pump off and removed the cups from Tony’s little breasts, looking at the collection bottles attached to the pump.

“You’re producing a good amount of milk.” Steve said, sounding almost proud.

“Good.” Tony nodded. Steve took the pump with him to the kitchen, where Tony could hear a cupboard door, the faucet in the sink, and then the door to the refrigerator. When Steve came back the collection bottles had been emptied and cleaned, and he put them and the pump back into the bedside drawer.

The three settled into a rhythm, spending time together in the bedroom, helping Tony walk around the perimeter of the room for a few minutes at a time, a few times a day. The others came for a visit whenever their schedules allowed them, and between the team, the baby was never left to cry for longer than it took the nearest Avenger to reach him, almost always followed by the rest of the team. Tony was almost always left alone in the bedroom when the baby needed looking after, and he took this time to have JARVIS show him a live feed of the baby’s room.


	9. Chapter 9

“JARVIS, how is Matthew doing?” he asked quietly while the rest of the team were out of the room looking after the baby and preparing dinner for the team. He was preparing himself for when Steve put the baby down again after he’d fallen asleep, knowing that he would be fetched for dinner at the dining room table.

“The young Sir is doing well. He is feeding well, and has had very little by the way of constipation. His weight is steadily improving, as it should be at this stage of his development.” JARVIS answered immediately.

“No sickness, or fever?” Tony asked.

“None, sir.” JARVIS assured him. “The young sir has fallen asleep and is being returned to his crib at the moment. I believe that you will be required at the dinner table presently, sir.”

“Thanks, JARVIS.” Tony said. He threw the covers off of himself and pushed himself into a sitting position with his feet on the floor, ready for when Steve came in to pull him to his feet.

He expected Steve to come through the door any minute, but instead got the call to Assemble over the PA system. He settled himself back into his pillows as he listened to the rest of the team suiting up to go out. Two minutes after the alarm first sounded, Bruce and Captain America came into the bedroom. Bruce was carrying a tray with food for Tony, and Captain America had four bottles of water with him.

“You haven’t had enough water today. I want you to drink both of them, please?” he asked as he handed two of them over, the other two were one for himself and one for Bruce.

“So, you guys have been called to Assemble?” Tony asked as he started eating his dinner.

“Yeah, couple of miles away from here. The Tower is out of the danger zone, so you two should be safe here. The situation seems simple, we shouldn’t be gone too long. If it’s necessary, Pepper or Happy will come by to help.” Steve said.

Tony nodded to show that he heard. If it took the team too long to finish with the situation, Pepper or Happy would come by to look after the baby for them. “I’ll see you guys when you come back.” Tony smiled sadly at them, he couldn’t hide how it hurt him that he was left alone, that someone who live separate from them would be called in to look after his baby. He knew that he’d messed up when he didn’t stay at the Tower as he was supposed to do with the training exercise all those weeks ago when the Triskellion was bombed and he’d put his baby in danger. It still hurt to know that they didn’t trust him with the baby now because of it.

Tony got a kiss from each of his mates before they left for the hangar and the quinjet. “JARVIS, put up the video feed from Matthew’s room for me.” Tony asked as soon as he knew that the team had left the Tower.

“Certainly, sir.”

Tony ate his dinner and drank his water while avidly watching his baby sleep. “JARVIS, he ever get any bad dreams?”

“The Young Sir has had no experiences to cause him to have bad dreams, sir. As such his sleep is restful.” JARVIS assured him.

“I’m certain that I’d have an influence on that, and not a good one.” Tony muttered to himself.

“I beg to differ, sir.”

“I know you only think the best of me, JARV. Your opinions of me almost never count.” Tony said.

Tony usually only had a few minutes to himself in which to watch his baby over the Tower’s internal systems, and so JARVIS now asked “Shall I turn the feed off, sir?”

“No, JARVIS, keep in on, please.” Tony said, almost too fast. Then he had JARVIS bring DUM-E to their floor to take his dishes to the kitchen. DUM-E refused to leave him after he’d taken the dishes to the kitchen, and came back to the bedroom. The bots had been allowed up once a week to visit with Tony.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST!!

Two and a half hours later, Matthew was starting to shift, and five minutes later he’d started whimpering. Tony hoped that someone would be there soon to take care of the baby. He’d never had to wait so long for someone to get there to change or feed him, and Tony couldn’t deal with his cries.

“DUM-E, help me up.” Tony said, throwing the blanket off and getting back into a seated position again. The bot came over to the side of the bed and curved his arm down and around to help Tony stand up from the bed. “You need to take me to Matthew. Do you understand, DUM-E?”

DUM-E nodded the claw that poked out from around Tony’s back, and beeped at Tony. Tony gritted his teeth and made sure that both he and DUM-E had a good grip, and then he started putting one foot in front of the other. It probably only took them a few minutes to get to Matthew’s room and to the side of his crib, but it felt like hours and by the time Tony reached him, Matthew’s little face was wet and red.

Tony started talking to Matthew immediately “Hi, Matthew. That’s the name that I wanted to give you, Matthew, your own name. Not named after my own father. He wasn’t worth that honour. I’m here, and I’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry. I bet you’re wanting a change, aren’t you?”

Tony stopped for a moment, just standing next to the crib, to take in the sight of his baby boy in real life. He let out a particularly loud wail. Tony started talking to him again as he thought over how he should pick up this fragile little human. The only thing he could remember was that their heads needed to be supported because their neck muscles weren’t strong enough to do it yet, so he slipped one hand under his tiny back, and the other beneath his head so that the top of his shoulders rested on the heel of his hand and he picked the baby up. He felt absolutely tiny to Tony, who had never held a child younger than seven (once for a photo shoot about the good that the Maria Stark foundation did for the youth).

He took the few steps over to the changing table with more care than he had ever done anything in his life, and put Matthew down so softly that he wasn’t even sure the baby realised that he’d been moved from one surface to another. “JARVIS, show me the steps the others follow, I don’t want to do anything differently than he’s used to and confuse him even more.”

JARVIS opened up a screen, showing Bruce changing Matthew’s diaper, with instructions written out on the side. Tony made sure to follow the instructions JARVIS gave him down to the smallest detail exactly as shown by Bruce in the video. When the diaper was almost fastened, Tony sent DUM-E to the kitchen to fetch a bottle for the baby, knowing that JARVIS would instruct DUM-E on what to do and keep a very strict eye on him.

Tony finished changing the baby’s diaper and redressed him, then he carefully moved him back to the crib, making sure that he was covered with a blanket like the others did when they put him down. When DUM-E was back with the bottle, Tony checked the temperature, even though he knew it was already perfect, thanks to JARVIS, and then he tried to get the crying baby to latch onto the plastic nipple.

He tried for ten minutes before he followed JARVIS’s repeated suggestions for picking up the baby and sitting in the rocking chair with him. He wouldn’t have been able to stand for much longer in any case, and needed DUM-E’s help to get into the rocking chair four feet from the crib. It seemed that Matthew had to be held while drinking, that was also the idea that he always got from the others when they talked about him, but Tony didn’t want his inherent badness to rub off on his precious baby. If he’d been better, then his father would have been proud of him and his mates would have brought him his baby instead of keeping them separated. They obviously didn’t want him to influence the baby.

He sat down and very slightly rocked the chair, and when he put the bottle to Matthew’s lips he latched on immediately. When he was done feeding, Tony realised that he wouldn’t be able to get up from the chair with his bum hip and the baby in his arms, as he wouldn’t be able to grab hold of DUM-E’s strut to help himself up. He couldn’t do anything but sit there with the baby in his arms as he waited for someone to come and clean up after him again.

He sat talking to the baby until he fell asleep in his arms, and then he sat there in silence. Tears were running down his face from the sheer amount of emotion he was feeling. The emotions were all jumbled up inside of him and he didn’t know what to do with them all; he was feeling love-and¬-joy-and-fear-and-protectiveness-and-pride, and he was just sitting there, making sure that his tears didn’t fall on his baby as he cried when the rest of the team came back from the mission.

All of them immediately headed for Matthew’s room when they returned, and stopped in the doorway when they found Tony crying over the baby. Tony looked up when he heard a slight noise from Clint pushing to the front of the group in the doorway, and found the Avengers just standing there staring at him intently. He knew immediately that what he had done was wrong. Whenever he did something without being told exactly what was wanted from him, he always somehow did the wrong thing.

He started babbling immediately.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that he was crying and no one else was here. I couldn’t just leave him alone, he needed to have his diaper changed and he needed to be fed. I put him back after I changed him, but he wouldn’t latch without being held, so I had to pick him up again, but I had to sit down or I would have fallen down. I’m sorry, I couldn’t get up again with him in my arms because I couldn’t hold him right and hold onto DUM-E to help me up, and I needed to hold onto DUM-E because of my stupid hips not being right yet, and there’s nowhere to put him down. I had DUM-E help me here from the bed, and he helped me sit down, but then the chair was in the way. I didn’t fit any of the bots with an arm sensitive enough for something like this, but I’ll start working on one tonight, JARVIS can fabricate all the parts, and one of the bots can bring them up to me and I can put it together. I’ll give one of them an arm that’s sensitive and soft and precise enough for him, so that I won’t have to again. I’m sorry; here he is.” He was holding the baby so very carefully out to Clint, who was the cleanest of the Avengers.

“What?” Clint asked softly, not understanding, as he moved slightly forward toward the baby that was being held out to him.

“I’m sorry, I know you don’t want me touching him, but there was nothing else I could do. I’m sorry and I made sure to only think good things. You should take him back now.” Tony was still holding Matthew out to Clint. The muscles in his arms were visible twitching, but the baby was held so very carefully and still in his arms. Clint moved forward by instinct to take the baby. As soon as the baby was cradled in Clint’s arms, Tony pushed himself up out of the rocking chair, grabbing hold of the arm DUM-E held out to steady him. “I’ll go now.” Tony finished softly, forcing his tired body to walk away from his baby and to the door, where the Avengers were still standing; staring at him in shocked silence.

“What do you mean, you know we don’t want you touching him?” Steve asked.

“It’s okay, Cap. I understand.” Tony said, as he shuffled past them out of the room.

He made his way down the hall back to his bedroom, forcing his body to move faster than it wanted with the help from DUM-E. He heard the others start talking as he reached his bedroom doorway; he immediately blocked the sound of their voices out and started on the design of a bot with two fully functional arms, so that Matthew would always be looked after, even when the rest of the team wasn’t there to do it for him.


	11. Chapter 11

“I’ve never seen something like that before in my life! Nor heard of it!” Natasha exclaimed.

“What?” Steve asked.

“I’ve never seen an Omega hand over their baby into a group of Alphas, unless their mate was the one they were handing it to, and usually only if it was the sire of the baby. He not only just did that, but then he also turned his back and left us with his baby.”

“What about what he said? About us not wanting him to touch the baby? Did one of you say anything like that to him?” Bruce asked.

“Of course not.” Steve said.

“Not that I can think of. I’m sure he’s been really careful every time that he’s held the baby, right? I mean, I haven’t seen him with him before, but it’s not like he’d be careless with him.” Clint said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him holding Howard.” Steve said.

“Neither have I.” Natasha said.

“Nor have I seen him hold his baby.” Thor chimed in.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t either.” Bruce said quietly. After a few minutes of silence, Bruce looked up, horrified, and asked “Please tell me someone took the baby to him sometimes?”

As one the rest of the Avengers shook their heads. Bruce looked up to the ceiling and asked “JARVIS, on the other occasions that Tony has held Howard, was he always as apprehensive as today?”

“There is no precedent of Sir holding his baby. Today was the first time that Sir had seen Young sir in the flesh.” JARVIS told the Avengers.

“What do you mean, it’s been the first time that he’d seen Howard in the flesh today?” Phil had joined the group, and was very confused about what he was hearing. As an Omega he had held and changed and fed Howard every time he was at the Tower, his Omega instincts driving him to take care of the infant.

“In the first week after the birth of the Young Sir, Sir was not conscious. The Young sir was taken in to nurse, and to scent Sir, but as the days progressed, and sir did not wake, he was pumped for breastmilk and the Young Sir was fed by bottle, as it is less risky for an infant to be fed by someone who is conscious and can hold him properly, than to be held to someone who is unconscious to feed. By the time Sir had awoken, the Young Sir was being fed Sir’s breastmilk exclusively from a bottle. Sir has requested a live feed of the Young Sir every time that he was being given attention, as Sir was left alone in his bed each time but for two occasions.”

“But when we got here now, he was taking such good care of Howard, JARVIS.” Bruce said softly, the confusion was obvious in his tone.

“Sir requested instructions and video of one of the team following those instructions on the tasks that were required. Once the Young Sir was changed, Sir placed him back into the cot, against my advice, and tried to feed him from there. Only after ten minutes of trying in vain to get the Young Sir to latch whilst lying in the cot, did Sir heed my advice and pick him up. Sir placed a pillow between his body and that of the Young sir, to “insulate the baby from him”.” They could practically hear the quotation marks. “Sir followed each action shown in the videos of one of the team taking care of the Young Sir to the way that Doctor Banner would stroke down the Young Sir’s leg before removing the soiled diaper.”

The team couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “How could none of us have taken him his baby? In three weeks?” Steve asked.

“I was so focused on his healing, I didn’t think.” Bruce said.

All of them mentioned some reason or another why they hadn’t taken the baby one room over, to see his Dam. “It was always so crowded in here when he needed to be changed or fed or just fussed for some attention. I don’t know how I missed the fact that Tony was never around.” Natasha mused.

Clint looked down at the baby that was just starting to fuss in his arms, and one look at the time told him it was time for a feed, so he took the baby to the kitchen and prepared a bottle. The fact that it was time for a feed again, attested to how long Tony had been sitting, holding his baby and worrying about what would be done because of something he did that he thought he shouldn’t have. Clint was just about to head back down the hall, his eyes fixed determinedly on the bedroom door Tony was hidden behind, when JARVIS got his attention. “Agent Barton, now would not be the best time to take the Young Sir to Sir. His mood is not right at this time. Perhaps you should take care of him this time.”

“Are you sure, JARVIS?” Clint asked.

“Sir is in a manic state as the moment, it would not do for the Young Sir to experience it.”

Tony was back in bed, frantically designing a robot that would be able to take care of his baby with the instruction from JARVIS, or even over a secure remote channel from one of the other Avengers, or in severe cases Pepper.

Three hours later he had finished the blueprints and the code that he would use for the bot. “JARVIS, will this work?”

“Sir?”

“Will the bot be strong enough for everything that it might need to do? Will its arms be soft enough to feel nice for Matthew? Are there enough sensors that it will know whether it’s being gentle enough? Have I given it enough manoeuvrability to complete all the tasks that might be necessary? Have I programmed it right? Will it know what it’s doing? Will it know just how important Matthew is and how careful to be not to hurt him?” Tony rambled off at the AI.

“I do not believe that it will be necessary, Sir.” JARVIS told his creator.

“I know, JARVIS. I know they won’t all leave again. They’ll leave someone behind, or they’ll have Pepper or Rhodey or Happy come over before they do. But what if something happens? What if there’s no choice but for all of them to leave? At least then they’ll know that Matthew will be taken care of.” Tony said. “So, did I do it right? Will it work?”

JARVIS stayed silent for a few moments as he went through what Tony had done in the past three hours. “I believe, sir that the only thing missing from your designs are body heat and the sound of a beating heart.” JARVIS said.

“Of course, how can I forget? That’s what babies need, the warmth of another body. Okay, so if I add in a network of tubing, and a heating unit at the bottom, then a pump at the top can circulate the heated fluid around the unit. The pump can work like a heart, to recreate the sound, and the heated fluid will warm up the unit.” Tony was talking aloud to himself as he added in to his blueprints. A few moments later he asked again “How is that, JARVIS?”

“It would be better if Young Sir were to be looked after by an actual person, sir.” JARVIS told his creator.

“I know, this will only be for emergencies when they can’t be here. So, is it good? Will it work?”

“According to all the data I have, it appears so. The only way to know for certain is to manufacture it and to try it with an actual baby.” JARVIS said.

Tony slumped. “Good. Manufacture the parts for me, JARVIS.”

“Certainly sir,” Came the cool answer.

Tony turned and put the tablet he’d been working on, on top of the bedside table, and took out the breast pump. Fifteen minutes later, he sent DUM-E to the kitchen with the breast pump held securely and carefully in his claw. The collection bottles attached to the machine were full. Steve took the machine from the bot when it was handed to him and processed the milk, ready for the next feed when it was needed.

“JARVIS, why was Tony call the baby Matthew when he was talking to you just now?” Steve had looked in on Tony a few minutes ago, but from Tony’s body language he knew that his presence wouldn’t do any good, so he closed the bedroom door again and left Tony to his engineering.

“Matthew is the name Sir had planned on giving the Young Sir. For Sir, that will always be his name.”

“But he calls him Howard when he’s speaking to one of us about him.”

“That is the name that the Young Sir was given, officially. Sir did not think it is place to say that he would prefer it to be otherwise, in any way of doing so. Sir did not wish to disappoint anybody.”

“Does Tony not like the name Howard?”

“Sir has nothing against the name itself, but when one takes into account the man the Young Sir is named after, Sir becomes less fond of it.”

“Tony doesn’t like that his son was named after his own dad?”

“While Sir’s father did sire him, I do not believe he was fatherly in any other fashion, and that the relationship was not a good one.” JARVIS said.

“JARVIS, has the baby’s registration papers been handed in yet?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And have they been processed yet?”

“No, Captain.”

“Is there a way that I can get to them and fix them before they are processed?”

“I believe if you were to intercept them en route to the main offices where they are scheduled to arrive in five hours, forty-three minutes, an exchange could be made.” JARVIS said.

“Will you help me to do this, for Tony, JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain.”

The two planned out exactly when and where it would happen. Steve needed to bring Clint’s help into it, and after ascertaining that Tony was asleep at the next feeding time, Steve took care of the baby everyone would have to rename in their heads as Matthew, and then the two left to intercept a truck full of paperwork.


	12. Chapter 12

When Tony woke up in the morning, he was still alone in their bedroom, with only DUM-E in the corner, waiting for something to do. He hadn’t been good enough for long enough to earn his mates’ company back during the night, he wasn’t too surprised to see. He’d touched the baby, he hadn’t been god enough to see him yet, and then he’d put his hands on him.

He chewed on his bottom lip as he had DUM-E help him up out of bed and to the bathroom, then to the kitchen for breakfast after that. He could hear someone in the room with Matthew, but didn’t have JARVIS give him his usual live feed as he ate a banana and drank a glass of milk before he returned to his room.

Twenty minutes after he got back into bed, Bruce came walking through the door. Tony thought he was just coming through to have a shower and barely glanced up from his tablet, but when he did, he could barely take his eyes away from the sight of his baby in the Alpha’s arms. It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen, his baby in the arms of his mate, and he didn’t want to miss even one second of it if until it was taken away from him again.

Bruce came straight over to the bed, and put the baby on the side where neither he nor Steve had slept the previous night. He arranged the pillows around the baby before he said “Watch him while I take a shower?” as he walked through the bathroom door and closed it after him.

“But I haven’t finished the arm yet. I’ve completed the designs, but I haven’t put it together yet, you can’t leave him with me.” Tony told the closed bathroom door, before he turned to stare at his baby while Bruce had a shower. “I don’t even think the parts are done fabricating.”

“It’ll be fine.” Bruce called back from the bathroom door he was just closing.

Tony looked down at the baby and didn’t take his eyes off of him again until Bruce came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, hair still damp and dressed in different clothes. “Any trouble?”

“He turned his head a little, but that’s it. Nothing happened.” Tony was quick to tell Bruce, glancing up at him quickly before he returned his eyes to the little bundle next to him on the bed. He’d wrapped his arms around his own middle when Bruce had left him alone with the baby, clutching hard enough at his sides to hurt; to make sure that he didn’t reach out to touch the baby.

“Thanks, Tony.” Bruce said, dropping a kiss on the top of his head as he reached across him for the baby.

Tony kept perfectly still; he didn’t want to show how grateful he was to have received the kiss from Bruce, and he didn’t want to bump the baby.

Bruce left the bedroom, and Tony immediately asked “JARVIS, how is the fabricating going?”

“I regret to inform you, Sir; that some of the materials are a bit hard to come by, and a week will be needed to acquire enough of it to complete the components.” JARVIS said.

“Do whatever you can to speed it along, JARVIS.” Tony said.

“Of course, Sir.”

 

That evening, Steve came into the room with the baby in his arms. He placed the baby on the bed where Bruce had put him earlier that day before he sat down on the couch that was pushed against the wall, took his sketchpad from the side table, and started sketching.

Tony sat perfectly still, again, just staring at the baby next to him on the bed. “Steve, he’s starting to wake up.” Tony said almost an hour later.

“Okay.” Steve sounded distracted. Tony had never seen or heard him react that way to the baby, so he tried again.

“The baby is waking up, Steve.” His tone had a slight tinge of urgency to it.

Steve glanced up at him, then firmly said “I heard.”

Half an hour later, the baby had started to cry, and Tony was again clenching his sides to keep his hands off of the baby. “Please, Steve! Please! I didn’t have another choice. Please don’t punish him because of me! Please!” Tony was begging. He had leaned down as close to the baby as he could twenty minutes ago to sniff if he needed a change, but he couldn’t detect anything. He had started leaking shortly after the crying had started, and his shirt now sported two large wet spots.

“This is not a punishment.” Steve said.

“Then why won’t you take care of him?”

“It’s up to you.” Steve was trying to get Tony to take care of the baby, he’d even said it when he first started crying.

“I promised already! I’ve finished designing the arms that I said I would. JARVIS has already started fabricating the parts, but it’s going to take a few days for some of it. Please, Steve, I don’t know what you want me to do.” Tony’s voice was quiet. His cheeks were as wet from crying as the baby’s.

“What are your instincts telling you to do, Tony?” Steve asked.

“They’re screaming at me to pick him up so that he can nurse. I promised already I won’t, please, Steve, please, please take care of him.”

Steve studied Tony for a moment, and finally recognised that Tony was too frantic to listen to what Steve was actually telling him to do. All Tony could hear was a lifetime’s worth of him not being enough. Steve stood from the couch, and started toward the bed, picking up the baby. “Thank you! Thank you! I promise, Steve! I promise!” Tony sobbed out, relaxing ever so slightly as Steve rounded the bed.

Tony tensed right back up again when Steve reached down with his other hand, and undid the buttons on the front of his sleep shirt. “What-? Why?” Tony couldn’t even think what question he was supposed to ask.

“Shhh.” Steve shushed the two of them simultaneously. He leaned down and held Matthew so that he could latch on to one of Tony’s nipples, then slid in behind Tony on the bed.

“Steve?” Tony asked, his arms pulled away from his chest and held down to his sides within the circle of Steve’s arms. “Did I not pump enough milk? Is that the problem?”

“No, Tony, there is more than enough milk in the fridge.” Steve answered quietly.

“I don’t understand, then.”

“We never meant to keep him from you. We each assumed that someone else had been bringing him to you. You never asked for him, so we assumed that you were seeing him. We would never keep you away from him or him away from you. It was a lapse in judgement on our part, and we promise to never let it happen again.” Steve murmured in his ear.

“But I was bad. I didn’t protect him, I wasn’t good enough. I know I’m not allowed what I can’t look after. I learned that long ago, you don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better. I know I’m not good enough to look after him anymore.” Tony was starting to ramble again, so Steve cut him off with one simple question.

“When do you think did you not protect him, Tony?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be there when the Triskellion was bombed. I was supposed to stay here. I didn’t listen, and I went. You said you didn’t want me to be part of it because it was too dangerous, and I didn’t listen, and I went anyway. I put him in a situation where he was in danger, just because I didn’t want to stay home on my own again. I was being selfish, and it put him in danger.”

“And, when the first bomb went off, and you realised it wasn’t safe anymore; what did you do?”

“I hid in the closet like a scared little child.” Tony said, his voice snide towards himself.

“No, what you did was find a place that held out much better than the corridor you were in, or the training room we were in. And once there, you put your own back to the open space, so that you would be between him and anything that could hurt him.”

“I curled up in a corner, when I should have gotten out.” Tony said, digging his fingers into his thighs to keep them to himself and to punish himself.

“There was no way for you to get out, Tony. You knew that, so you found a more secure space than the hallway, you put yourself between any potential threat and the baby, and then, to top it all off, you told JARVIS to enfold your abdomen with the suit. You didn’t say, whatever parts are covering nothing important, or vital. You told JARVIS to put the suit together over and around your abdomen to protect your baby, without a thought to yourself. JARVIS made the call to keep the helmet and the back of the suit where it was.”

“If my head or body had gotten crushed, it would have caused the death of him, of Howard.” Steve could almost hear Tony steel himself to say the name Howard, and wondered how he had never noticed before. “The body needs the brain to live, and the body needs to be alive to incubate a child.”

“No, sweetie. JARVIS made that call to keep you safe as well as the baby.” Steve tried to get him to understand.

Matthew let go of the nipple he’d been nursing from with a soft sound, so Steve moved him to latch onto the other. Tony tensed up again, pulling his arms back some more. “Hold him, Tony.”

“I can’t. My badness will go to him. He doesn’t deserve that. He only deserves good.”

Steve carefully let go with one arm, cradling Tony’s hand firmly in his own and moving it to hold the baby, then reaching for the other one. Tony tried weakly to pull away. But Steve still held his hands. Steve was using Tony’s own hands to hold the baby to his chest.

“There is nothing bad in you that will go to the baby.” Steve said quietly.

“Why aren’t you calling him by a name anymore, Steve?” Tony asked quietly. “Is that why you’re letting me take care of him now? Doesn’t he have one anymore?”

“What does that mean?” Steve asked, he was trying very hard to sound calm.

“When I was bad when I was eight I was bad, and wasn’t called by name anymore. Isn’t he called Howard anymore, because of me?” Tony was still crying. Steve heard the flat apathetic tone in Tony’s voice when he spoke about himself, but his voice sounded tortured when he asked about the baby.

“I overheard you talking to JARVIS yesterday, you didn’t call him Howard then.” Steve said softly.

“I won’t again. Please don’t take his name from him. I’ll call him Howard, even in my own head!” Tony was about to start begging again, so Steve cut him off.

“JARVIS, has the paperwork been finalised?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Please open up a screen in front of us.” A blank screen appeared in front of them where they could comfortably read from it. “Please go to the sight of child registration offices, and go into their records.” The sight flashed before them, and then a next page showed, one that was obviously only meant for officials to be able to see. “JARVIS, please do a search by sire; Stephen Grant Rogers, and tell us how many results there are.”

“One result with Sire listed as Stephen Grant Rogers.” JARVIS told them.

“Please show all the particulars of the child.” JARVIS showed the result that would have come up if someone had done this normally on a computer. There all of the information was, Sire was Steve, Dam was Tony, Bruce was officially listed as a third parent, the date and time of the baby. And at the very top were what Tony would never have believed; NAME: MATTHEW EDWIN STARK

Tony’s arms cradled the baby a little closer as he cried. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve that his baby was named what he’d wanted, but he was so grateful that he couldn’t speak.

 

For the next week, either Bruce or Steve brought Matthew to Tony when he needed a feed, but Tony still wouldn’t touch him on his own, so they sat behind him and held Tony’s arms around his baby while he nursed, and after. A week later, when Steve was helping Tony, he pulled one of his own arms away, supporting Tony’s arms with just the left while he sketched off to the side. Two days after that, Steve slowly pulled his left arm away as well, when Matthew was comfortably cuddling in his Dam’s arms after his feed.

Once he was properly mobile again, Tony refused to be alone in a room with Matthew, he took Matthew in his arms when the others put him there but didn’t pick him up on his own. When Matthew was two months old, and started fussing, Steve was in the room with them and told Tony to pick him up. Tony followed the instruction without pause. When Matthew was four months old he no longer needed to be told to pick up his baby, but instead he looked to whoever was around for permission to pick him up when he started fussing.

From when Mattew was eight months old, until he was fourteen months old, unless Steve or Bruce had told him that morning that he was allowed to, he went to fetch another of the team to look after Matthew when he started fussing.

After more than a year, Tony finally would listen to his Omega instincts when it concerned his child and pick him up to look after him.


	13. Chapter 13

When Matthew was one and a half, Steve sat his two mates down and asked “Do you think we should have a second child?”

“I don’t want Matthew to grow up alone like I did.” Tony spoke up softly.

“The same with me. I was lucky enough to have Bucky for a brother, but before him I often wished for a sibling.” Steve said.

They turned to Bruce. “I didn’t think I’d ever have one, and you think I’d say no to a second?” his tone of voice was asking if they were daft.

“Do you want to wait longer?” Steve asked Tony.

He shook his head “Don’t want them to be too far apart, they should be close enough to be able to play a bit.”

“Do you want to start trying with your upcoming Heat?” Bruce asked Tony.

He bit his lip for a moment before nodding.

“Tony, this is all your choice as well, anything you want or don’t want, you can tell us.” Steve had gotten good at trying to get Tony to tell them what he wanted but didn’t think he’d deserved.

“Please, this Heat.”

His two Alphas each gave him a soft kiss, and all of them cuddled up for a movie.

When he was pregnant by Steve three months later, he approached Bruce on the labs “I want to have your baby.”

“Both of them are mine too, Tony.” Bruce said.

“I want to find a way to make it safe for me to have your baby. We can start working on it now so by the time this one is old enough and we’re ready for the third, you can be the sire.”

“Tony, there’s no way to decontaminate me. The radiation has become part of me, my body is producing the radiation now.”

“I know, but we can work on getting your sperm to be safe, can’t we?”

Tony was looking at Bruce so hopefully. “We can try.”

“Thank you!” Tony hugged Bruce.

When their second son was one year old, they implanted a small device that within Bruce’s scrotum that ran decontamination cycles every half an hour, and tested him every four hours for functionality and fertility. A week later, and his sperm was still viable and there was no sign of anything anomalous. He sat Steve and Tony down and told them “I don’t want to impregnate you during a heat. I’m too afraid that the change in body chemistry might overrule the devise.”

“Then why did we go through all of this?” Tony asked. He was crushed and trying very hard not to show it, he started getting up to leave and lick his wounds in peace.

“Wait.” Bruce said, putting a hand on Tony’s knee to keep him there. “I want to do this more like if you’d gone to a doctor to get pregnant with donor sperm.”

“A child should be made through love.” Tony said softly.

“I know, and it’s why I want to do it this way. Because I love you, and Steve, and the two that we already have; I want to make sure that the sperm that we use to get you pregnant again is safe, for you, the boys, and the new baby.” Bruce said. “I just want to protect all of you, I’m too afraid of losing you otherwise.”

“So I just come to the lab, you insert your sperm and then we go about our days?” Tony asked. He was appeased by Bruce’s reasoning, but he didn’t like how clinical it all sounded.

“It doesn’t need to happen in a lab. We can do it in the bedroom, and we can do it after having sex like with condoms like we usually do. Or we can do it in the lab, or we can just perform the procedure in our bedroom. It’s up to you.” Bruce said.

“We should do it in the Heat Nest, just after my next Heat. You can both wear condoms like usual, and then when we’re sure my Heat is over, we can try. Some studies that have been done, say that Omegas are still extremely fertile for two days after their Heats, which is why I always stayed in my Heat Nest for those two extra days.” Tony said.

“And your next Heat is -“ Bruce started.

“Starting in two days.” Steve said.

“Well, I guess I better start getting ready.” Bruce said.

Months later, Tony was snuggling his new-born baby girl whilst sitting in the bed he shared with his two mates. He was cooing at her quietly, and looked up to see his four boys coming into the room, each with a small gift for the new member of the family. The rest of his family, his team and friends were crowded just outside the door.

Only when his two boys were snuggled on either side of him, and his two mates were sitting on either end of the group, did Tony allow the rest to come in. Each of them congratulated him, and complimented his baby. When it was Natasha’s turn she bent over him slowly, giving him a kiss on the head and said “I am glad to finally see that protective Omega instinct from you. I only wish that you had not had such a life that you did not believe you were allowed to show it first time.”

Tony positively beamed at her, then said “We’re naming her Emily Natasha Stark.”


End file.
